What to do after moving into your new house.

This article is about seven things you should do first when getting a new home. Whether you’re a new homeowner or you’re a seasoned homeowner, these 7 things are always the same and they’re what you want to do right away. The first thing you want to do is change the lock. So it sounds like common sense because it is common sense, but a lot of people fail to do that. Changing the locks upfront is extremely important, because you don’t necessarily know who has had copies of keys to your new home before you moved in. So it’s safest to get the new locks right away and you should also change the code for your garage door while you’re at it and program it into your cars, should be one of the first things that you do right away as soon as you get the keys to your new place. The second thing that you want to do is actually finding the utility shutoff valves. The last thing that you ever want to be in is inclement weather and you have either a really bad snowstorm or maybe you’re in an area that’s prone to earthquakes, tornadoes or hurricanes, any kind of natural calamities like that. If you have an emergency situation where the freeze burst a pipe or something just happens, you need to know where your shutoff valves are to turn off the water, turn off the electric, turn off all the utilities to the house to help protect your house until the calamity stops. The third thing that you want to do is do a deep cleaning before you move in. Item number one before you move that couch, you want to clean those floors, let’s say the house has carpets, you’ll want to get those carpets either professionally cleaned or go get a steam cleaner or a carpet cleaner and go ahead and clean it all out. The first thing that you’re going to want to do is clean everything, check the fridge to make sure nothing was left behind, check the oven, check the stove, get everything cleaned up. The fourth thing that you’re going to want to do is change your furnace filter. You don’t know when was the last time that the furnace filter was changed, so you want to change it first and change it out right away so you can start tracking a monthly cycle of changing out your furnace filters.

The fifth thing you want to do is a plan for emergencies. It’s one of those things that most of us don’t think about right away, but it’s the best thing to be thinking about. Get familiar with where all your smoke detectors are, change the batteries out in them if they’re not wired into the house, test them and make sure that they work. So if something ever happened, then you can rely with a peace of mind of knowing your smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors work. The next game plan coming up is actually knowing where your nearest emergency rooms, police department and fire department are. Also being ready for anything that may happen along with a first-aid kit, should someone hurt themselves inside your house, having that stuff on hand is massively important and it’s one of those things we don’t always think about by having it there whenever the need arises. The seventh thing that you’d want to consider doing is meeting the neighbors. Maybe you’re one of those type of people that don’t really care who their neighbors are but here’s the thing, getting off to a good start with your neighbors can actually make it easier for you to love your new home, love your new neighborhood and they can actually be a great source of information for everything that’s going on with your neighborhood and community, from what the best schools are to what the best place is to eat out at night and getting engaged with them can help keep each other safe. If there’s something going down they’re not going to hesitate to call the police, because they know where you’re at and they know what you’re doing and you can do the same for them.

The seventh thing is a bit fun, it’s throwing a party. When you’re moving in, probably one of the last things you think about is throwing a party, but here’s the deal. It helps you keep on schedule as far as deep cleaning the house and gives you the motivation and the impetus to keep going to get everything done, get everything moving, get everything up on the wall and have everything ready to go, so that you don’t procrastinate.